Summary / Review:
This article talked about background knowledge, how it aids learning, and how to build your students background knowledge. The authors mentioned two different types of background knowledge, direct and indirect. Direct is when students have a hands on experience with the material by doing a lab or going on a field trip whereas indirect is knowledge they get from an indirect source such as a book. Direct knowledge can be time consuming and costly to get for your students so the article focused on how to build students indirect background knowledge.
The authors conducted an experiment where with one unit, one class was allowed 10-12 minutes every day to read books related to the topic they were covering and another class did not change their routine and therefore became the control group. The findings showed that students who were allowed to read every day in class scored an average of 86% on questions about that unit whereas the control group only averaged 59%. These results are pretty drastic so the authors then get into reasons why teachers may not allow time for reading in class even though it was proven to be very effective. Some issues were finding and storing books as well as paying for them.
After reading this article I wound agree that students do learn better when they already have background knowledge on the topic being taught. However, there were some aspects of this article I did not agree with or thought needed to be addressed more. For example, I think another problem with allowing 10-12 minutes of reading time everyday is that that takes 10-12 minutes away from instruction. We have talked a lot in class about how precious time is and while I agree that background knowledge is important I think taking that much time everyday to read is wasting precious in-class time. Maybe teachers could assign background reading for homework and have students take notes to be handed in to make sure the work is getting done instead of using class time.
Another issue I had with this article is that it never mentions accessing background knowledge that students may already have. I have learned that the opening of a lesson is really important and part of what a teacher can do in the opening is see what students already know about a topic. Many students will probably have at least a little knowledge of a topic before you even begin to teach it. Therefore, I think teachers can build background knowledge simply by getting students to realize what they already know.
In conclusion I completely agree that background knowledge is important for any student to have. However I think background knowledge can be built upon / gained more effectively then what this article suggested. By having students read to build background knowledge outside of the classroom students will still be getting the benefit of all that reading without having to lose classroom time over it. Also teachers can do a lot to build background knowledge simply by seeing what their students already know. Background knowledge is an important instructional tool that if used correctly can be very beneficial to student learning.
Citation: Fisher, Douglas, Donna Ross, and Maria Grant. "Building Background Knowledge." SciLinks (2010): 23-27. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.
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Summary / Review:
This article talked about background knowledge, how it aids learning, and how to build your students background knowledge. The authors mentioned two different types of background knowledge, direct and indirect. Direct is when students have a hands on experience with the material by doing a lab or going on a field trip whereas indirect is knowledge they get from an indirect source such as a book. Direct knowledge can be time consuming and costly to get for your students so the article focused on how to build students indirect background knowledge.
The authors conducted an experiment where with one unit, one class was allowed 10-12 minutes every day to read books related to the topic they were covering and another class did not change their routine and therefore became the control group. The findings showed that students who were allowed to read every day in class scored an average of 86% on questions about that unit whereas the control group only averaged 59%. These results are pretty drastic so the authors then get into reasons why teachers may not allow time for reading in class even though it was proven to be very effective. Some issues were finding and storing books as well as paying for them.
After reading this article I wound agree that students do learn better when they already have background knowledge on the topic being taught. However, there were some aspects of this article I did not agree with or thought needed to be addressed more. For example, I think another problem with allowing 10-12 minutes of reading time everyday is that that takes 10-12 minutes away from instruction. We have talked a lot in class about how precious time is and while I agree that background knowledge is important I think taking that much time everyday to read is wasting precious in-class time. Maybe teachers could assign background reading for homework and have students take notes to be handed in to make sure the work is getting done instead of using class time.
Another issue I had with this article is that it never mentions accessing background knowledge that students may already have. I have learned that the opening of a lesson is really important and part of what a teacher can do in the opening is see what students already know about a topic. Many students will probably have at least a little knowledge of a topic before you even begin to teach it. Therefore, I think teachers can build background knowledge simply by getting students to realize what they already know.
In conclusion I completely agree that background knowledge is important for any student to have. However I think background knowledge can be built upon / gained more effectively then what this article suggested. By having students read to build background knowledge outside of the classroom students will still be getting the benefit of all that reading without having to lose classroom time over it. Also teachers can do a lot to build background knowledge simply by seeing what their students already know. Background knowledge is an important instructional tool that if used correctly can be very beneficial to student learning.